Pittsburgh couple buys Levi Deal Mansion

June 15, 2010|Judy D.J. Ellich

Pittsburgh — A Pittsburgh couple bought Meyersdale’s Levi Deal Mansion Bed & Breakfast during the final days of 2009.

Jan Dofner and F. Michael Dedolph bought the bed and breakfast for $300,000 from Greensburg nonprofit The Progress Fund, a community development institution that lends money to small businesses in rural Pennsylvania’s tourism industry.

The new owners hope that the 19th century home at the intersection of Meyers Avenue and Cherry Street will be open for business by Valentine’s Day weekend.Dofner and Dedolph plan to make Meyersdale their home. The new owners are selling their Pittsburgh-area home and moving into the third floor of the mansion during the first weekend in February.

“The mansion is stunning and just beautiful,” Dofner said.

“We are excited and a little scared,” she added.

She will finish her final days as communications director for Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area in Homestead by the end of the month. The tourism-oriented organization has been a place she has called home for a decade.

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Her husband, a consultant for the software industry, will bring another dimension to the B & B: He is a certified massage therapist.

“We hope we can live up to everybody’s expectations,” Dofner said.

Representatives for the nonprofit are elated by the couple’s expertise and intentions for the mansion. “They have all the skills you want for B & B owners,” said David Kahley, president and CEO of The Progress Fund. The organization temporarily acquired the B & B for the community, he said.

In 2005 businessman Fred Dickson bought the former family home and decided to convert it into a bed and breakfast the same year. The Progress Fund made a loan to Dickson to help renovate the mansion and supported the project from the beginning.

But when Dickson fell on hard financial times, it didn’t look good for the building’s survival. He put the mansion and other properties up for sale in 2008. The Progress Fund decided to save it.

“We did not want to see a successful operation collapse in all that mire,” Kahley said.

In 2009 the nonprofit acquired the mansion through a legal transfer of ownership.

But the financial institution never planned to get into the bed and breakfast business. It had the resources to keep it open until the right person came along to buy it. The nonprofit expected it could take a couple years. But the sale took only about six months.

“Sometimes the best way to get what you want is not a rule, but through circumstances,” he said.The Progress Fund was made whole by the sale and it was able to give Dofner and Dedolph a good price that included all the bed and breakfast assets.

“We are extremely pleased our plan succeeded,” he said.

So are Dofner and Dedolph, who had reached a new phase in their life and were looking for a business they could help grow together.

“The first couple of months we may be a bit crazed so we hope our neighbors will take the initiative and introduce themselves,” Dofner said.

Dofner loves to cook and bake, a talent as important as marketing skills in a bed and breakfast venture. She said that there may not be homemade cookies ready for the neighbors initially, but she plans to work on that.

She is not set in anything yet, but she has a lot of ideas. She is hoping to put together dinner packages.

If everything goes well over the next year, she may install a hearth oven to bake pizzas for guests.

There may even be a little bakery for townspeople and guests in the mansion’s future.

The couple plans to keep the decor much the same. They will add a small collection of art they have acquired over their travels, she said.

Mostly, they want to give the B & B that quality that when someone walks into the mansion, they know they have entered a welcoming home, she said.